Quality Assurance – “Consulting vs Staffing”

Beyond Seat Filling: How a Quality Assurance Consultancy Drives Better Results Than a Staffing Agency

When a project needs quality assurance services, there is no shortage of companies that can provide QA personnel. However, there are significant differences in how personnel can be acquired, trained, and utilized for a project depending on the style of company. The majority of companies providing QA testers are traditional staffing agencies that do little more than fill seats. However, QA companies that approach each unique project from the perspective of consulting partnering with a client can bring significant additional value and optimal results.

Customized quality assurance programs

Beyond simple “staffing,” a quality assurance consultancy can offer a customized suite of service solutions that general staffing agencies are simply unable to provide. A traditional staffing agency will rarely have organizational or specific project insight, as they are more often focused on filling the role and then moving on to new requests. In contrast, as subject matter experts providing fully managed and tailored programs, a consultancy can act as a secondary arm of a client’s company, deploying a highly specialized team built around project scenarios and technologies. Rather than budgeting for time-based temporary headcount through a staffing agency, a team working with a consultancy can budget for an entire project, allowing for feature planning and timeline flexibility.

Fully managed services

While traditional staffing agencies simply fill the role and move on, the best consultancies will offer quality assurance services through a fully managed program. Consulting site leads provide operational support and guidance, a full team onboarding plan and orientation program, ongoing performance reviews, and status reporting and feedback. Clients receive consistent reporting during the course of the project, as well as postmortems to build upon project knowledge.

Investment in team members

For a quality assurance consultancy, staff members are not just “temps” or “contractors.” They are highly trained team members who bring specific expertise and operate with company-level commitment. Unlike traditional staffing agencies, which conduct “revolving-door” resume reviews and recruitment, a consultancy spends significant resources on management overhead to train and review the highest-quality staff members and support them for sustained career growth. Training and maintaining a satisfied work team contributes to company loyalty and the continuation of institutional knowledge, so career investment builds through consecutive temporary projects.

Driven by initiatives

Rather than focusing on a “job,” as a traditional staffing agency might do, a consultancy recognizes how even a temporary project fits within the context of larger organizational initiatives. The best consultancy will understand all the roles and key responsibilities associated with a project and determine the best team members to deploy who understand the core technology. Partnering with a client to develop a relationship around an initiative, a consultancy can contribute to the organization in meaningful ways, while adding real business value.

Access to Proven Expertise

A consulting firm has a wealth of influence that is collected over the years. That typically escalates to best practices and methodologies that can be leveraged by the consultants on various projects. Traditional staffing firms do not possess the infrastructure to build up the knowledge base of expertise. This area may represent the biggest ROI to customers for using a consultant firm versus traditional staffing firms.

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